


i don’t need you to fix what i’d rather forget

by kxyokosxn (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Brotherly Affection, College, M/M, Mental Instability, References to Depression, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 13:23:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20817989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kxyokosxn
Summary: He was in a vehicular accident that didn’t take his life but it might as well have. Temper, temper. He never really played the same way. He’s manic. He’s obsessed. He insists, “It can be fixed!” He insists, “I’m the same.” He insists, “I can still do it.” He insists a lot, and they don’t have the heart to tell him that, “no, you can’t.”So they let him go.





	i don’t need you to fix what i’d rather forget

Osamu loves him.

Not because he has to. Osamu doesn’t care for things like that. Atsumu is colorful and spontaneous. He’s never one to care about the consequences of his actions. He’s never boring, always has an idea to share, thrives in artistry. He is everything Osamu isn’t. He is bright and full of life.

Atsumu has been there for everything in Osamu’s life. For every ball game, every scrape, every crush gone wrong. That’s enough.

Shinsuke loves him.

Not because he has to. Shinsuke says things as they are. He doesn’t like lying. Or sugarcoating. He is a man of simplicity, and when he realised that he felt this way, he went about it simply too, telling Atsumu over lunch.

(That ended, as all things concerning Atsumu, dramatically. It involved a lot of wasted food and a panicked first aider performing the Heimlich.)

It is an easy love, one that was easy to water and make grow. They love easily. Simply. Without question.

They love him the same way flowers love the sun for it makes them grow and live and bloom, but the sun could get too hot and ruin everything they helped nurture, and in the same way, Atsumu would ruin them.

(Atsumu is angry.)

He was in a vehicular accident that didn’t take his life but it might as well have. Temper, temper. He never really played the same way. He’s manic. He’s obsessed. He insists, “It can be fixed!” He insists, “I’m the same.” He insists, “I can still do it.” He insists a lot, and they don’t have the heart to tell him that, “no, you can’t.”

So they let him go.

Atsumu doesn’t like being told he’s wrong. He’s been in and out of hospitals, pleading recurring complications. A doctor in Tokyo refers him to a therapist. A masseuse in downtown Osaka says maybe he should try essential oils. A peddler urges him to offer to the gods. They only leave him feeling more helpless as the days pass.

Osamu doesn’t know how, exactly, he’s supposed to comfort him. He tries to be gentle, but he’s never really known how to be anything else but rough with Atsumu. Kind words never got through with him, anyway.

Shinsuke only wants to help him through this, make sure he knows he’s not alone. He tries to show it with the mugs of green tea, the little gifts at his bedside, the smell of scented candles.

Neither works.

One night, with no other option, Shinsuke kisses him and dares him to forget. They’re tangled in the sheets, fingers tangled together, muffled pleas spewing out of Atsumu’s clumsy lips, the slap of skin against skin so clear and so dirty in the silence of the gold-tinted evening. When Shinsuke comes, pretty and dewy, buried deep Atsumu, he takes his face in his hands and finds pleasure in how powerful this man is, showered in gold, decreed a deity by mere mortals, and here he is, breathless, begging, bared.

Being greedy is not something he makes a habit of being, but the look in his eyes is something he’ll gladly let himself get addicted to.

Atsumu pushes him off. He only says as an explanation, “Osamu is waiting outside the door.”

Shinsuke takes one look at Atsumu as he picks up his clothes from the floor. He is erratic, with his wild eyes, ferocious grin. He thinks _this one won’t stay._

The geniuses always wanted more, and while he’d always thought Atsumu would leave, Shinsuke never really expected this was the way he would decide to go.

He expected trophies, championships, the sound of a victory well won. Not a slow descent to madness, not anger, not thrashing, not disappointment.

Atsumu leaves the room once he’s properly covered, and Osamu takes his place. He stares, always a silent observer. He sees the dark reds on Shinsuke’s skin, the purplish blues. He sees his body in all its nakedness, and finds nothing but the marks of betrayal. Still, he smiles. “How did it feel?”

Like a Pyrrhic victory. Like Helen leaving corpses in the wake of her love. Like defeat pretending to be kind. “I’d rather not say,” he replies, buttoning his white polo shirt.

Osamu takes his discarded slacks from the floor and gives it to him. Shinsuke takes them. All is silent. “I love him too,” Osamu tells him. He says it like it’s a fact. It is. Why wouldn’t he love him? “You feel the same.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let him hurt you,” he moves closer. He stares at Shinsuke, serious. “Because if you let him, he will.”

His eyes are empty.

“Okay.” Shinsuke replies.

Osamu steps closer to him, invades his space. “Please take care of him,” he says. It’s a plea, but not quite. Osamu never begs.

Shinsuke bows. It’s something he can’t promise.

Atsumu can’t do the things he’s once loved with everything in his being, and Shinsuke can tell it frustrates him. He’s always covered in colors when he visits, throwing himself on the sofa. Sometimes, he’s green, nauseous and envious and yelling, “I deserve it a fuckton more than Osamu!” Sometimes, he’s blue, tearing through tendons, breaking apart at the edges as he watches his twin on national television. “Without me,” he mumbles, “How can he play without me? Osamu, you bastard, be a little more upset about it!” Other times, he’s red, with hickeys on his body and lipstick marks on his collar, and he demands Shinsuke to add more to his collection.

“Make me forget,” Atsumu cries. It’s always hard to refuse.

Shinsuke knows he’s doing his best to keep his head above water and he helps when he can. Sometimes, when Atsumu is soft and sated and beside him in bed, he tells him he’s grateful. Other times, he barely acknowledges his presence simply because he doesn’t have the energy to, and tears into his skin in an effort to cement the growing chasm in his own.

Tonight though, it’s neither. Atsumu hasn’t moved from where he’s plopped himself on yesterday. Osamu is going to the nationals today. He texted him a congratulations earlier. The only response he got was _take care of atsumu._

He’s trying his best. Desperation is clear in his voice when he says, “I got you pudding today. Your favorite.”

Atsumu doesn’t reply. Shinsuke doesn’t think he wants him to. He doesn’t think it’d be anything nice.

“I love you.” It slips out, and Atsumu doesn’t look the slightest bit shaken.

“I know.”

“I’ll be here.” Simple enough.

But Atsumu finally cracks open, lips trembling. “I know.”

In a gym too fancy for his taste, in a crowd bigger than he’s used to, Miya Osamu takes a deep breath.

His heart is aching in his chest, and the setter doesn’t play like Atsumu does, but he will win this game in his twin’s stead.

He swears on his life. He will win every game for his twin, even if Atsumu isn’t beside him anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song "only us" from the dear evan hansen musical


End file.
